*Introduce guest, if possible, and
promise to tell what killed him later [Agent Orange], as we are going to
look at some of the tactics of the war, as well as the incident that brought
Americans into Viet-Nam in large numbers.

*The 1960s saw a major change in American
military policy. Kennedy and Johnson’s war policies were shaped by
Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. He helped create a new overall
outlook for the US military. Under Eisenhower, the US had relied
on deterrence, the power of the mighty atom, and the threat of mutual assured
destruction, to prevent war. This worked in the sense that the USSR
did not invade the US or any other NATO country. However, this did
not let the US deal with threats too small to nuke but too big to ignore.
Consequently, the JFK administration developed flexible response, the ability
to send different types and sizes of military units around the world.
Part of this was the creation of the US Special Forces as we know them
to-day: the Green Berets. Although they were elite special
forces fighters, they were also teachers and advisors, training Vietnamese
and others in guerilla warfare to resist the communists.

*JFK and LBJ followed the policy of
containment. They wanted to keep communism from spreading and would
fight it when it tried, just as the Truman Doctrine promised. The
great fear of the US was called the Domino Theory: if one country
in South-east Asia fell to communism, so would the rest, one after another.
Despite this policy and these fears, they did not want to get involved
in a major war, so, at least through 1964, they, like Ike, only sent money
and advisors to the RVN, although they sent more and more as they years
went by.

*Things got worse early in the Johnson
administration. The ARVN generals who took over from Nho Dinh Diem
governed the country poorly, did not run the ARVN well, and 1964 saw a
rise in Viet Cong activity in RVN. Often former Viet Minh, these
guerillas sabotaged the RVN at night and looked like peaceful peasants
during the day.

*Even though he wanted to concentrate
on his Great Society projects, Johnson felt obligated to send more troops
to Viet-Nam, raising the number to 21,000 by the end of July, 1964.
These were still just advisers, at least officially, but they were involved
in spying operations in North Viet-Nam and the US Navy sometimes bombarded
NVN coastal facilities.

è Distribute papers and lay
out basic facts of 31 July-7 August 1964:è 31 July: Maddox begins
patrolling Gulf of Tonkinè 2 August: Maddox attackedè 3 August: South Viet-Nam
forces attack North Viet-Namese radar installation.è 4 August: Maddox and
C. Turner Joy patrol Tonkin Gulf, report ships and torpedoes on the radar,
fire and call for (and receive) air supportè 7 August: US Congress
passes a joint resolution giving the President very broad war powersè What actually happened, how
reliable are the quotes, and what was the mood of the country at the time?

*On 2 August 1964, some US Navy destroyers
were patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin, possibly with the intent of provoking
an attack (and thus a legitimate cause for war). They were attacked
by NVN torpedo boats. The damage was minimal (only one bullet struck,
hitting the USS Maddox).

*On 3 August, the US Navy continued
to patrol the Gulf and to bombard bridges and other NVN targets.

*On 4 August, radar reports showed
many more boats approaching the Maddox and other patrolling US ships and
launching torpedoes, and the Navy fired upon them. This attack allowed
Johnson to ask Congress for the power to send troops to Viet-Nam, because
Congress, not the president, deploys and pays troops. On 7 August
1964, Congress responded with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which allowed
the President to do whatever he felt was necessary as long as he said there
was an emergency. Johnson used it to respond with massive bombing
campaigns and a build-up of troops.

*It has later been discovered that
the second wave of attacks detected by radar were actually thunder clouds.
However, at the time, Johnson did not dare appear weak, especially in an
election year, even though, afterwards, he expressed doubt over the authenticity
of the radar reports.

*In February 1965, the Viet Cong, moving
along the Ho Chi Minh trail, attack the RVN town of Pleiku, killing 8 Americans
and wounding 126. General Westmoreland calls for two battalions of
Marines to defend the US air base at Da Nang.

*LBJ can now send all the troops he
wants to Viet-Nam without a declaration of war by Congress and he does
so in great numbers (184,000 are present by the end of 1965). This
is called escalation, and will ultimately send 3.5 million Americans overseas,
sparking controversy between hawks & doves.

*The war in Viet-Nam was not like any
war Americans had fought, except possibly the French and Indian War.
Used to living in the jungle, the VC were undetectable in most cases, but
they killed and wounded many soldiers and terrified more, and it was almost
impossible to hit them back. Civilians might throw a bomb or try
to poison them. Soldiers faced booby traps such as pits with punji
sticks, land mines on paths, grenades hooked to tripwires, and an enemy
working out of vast underground tunnel systems that were dangerous to infiltrate
and clear out.

*The government they were helping to
defend was corrupt and unpopular, but the government of North Viet-Nam
was worse. In the mid-‘60s, Americans felt they had to be there and
that they were doing the right thing. In 1966 the #1 song was ‘Ballad
of the Green Beret.’ However, they were not trained to fight a guerrilla
war and it showed. Soldiers frustrated at being unable to find the
enemy often killed civilians, usually, but not always, by accident.

*The NVA and the VC had other advantages
besides their invisibility and relative popularity. The US Army had
rules of engagement it followed to keep from offending the Vietnamese people
or neighbouring countries. The US would not bomb cemeteries, so the
VC hid in them. The US would not invade or bomb Laos or Cambodia,
so the NVA and VC built roads and carried supplies through those countries
on the Ho Chi Minh trail. The US conducted bombing raids on North
Viet-Nam and on suspected VC outposts, but not nearly as many as they could
have, and none on Hanoi or Haiphong, because Johnson was afraid of accidentally
hitting a Soviet advisor and sparking WW III.

*The Viet-Nam War was a coordinated
ground and air war despite limitations on both branches, or at least it
was meant to be. The US Army sent many soldiers into battle on helicopters,
including the famous First Cavalry. This was the first time US helicopters
were used for significant troop transports in war.

*The army could call in the Air Force
to help them fight enemy positions, although the USAF was known to hit
its own people, too. In these attacks the USAF used fragmentation
bombs, which exploded into many little pieces, sending shrapnel everywhere
to kill the enemy. They also used napalm, jellied gasoline that set
the jungle on fire and stuck to anyone it hit.

*In the North, the USAF applied saturation
bombing and carpet bombing when it dared, blasting entire regions flat
with as much explosive power as the Hiroshima bomb several times over.
This began in 1965 under the codename Operation Rolling Thunder, and was
intended to force the North to quit invading the South. Beginning
in 1966, this was carried out by the B-52.

*The US also used Agent Orange, a defoliant
that killed the jungle vegetation so soldiers could find hiding VC, but
it also caused health problems in many Vietnamese people and livestock
and, it was later discovered, in many US soldiers as well.

*Despite increased US escalation, the
war was largely a stalemate. In ambushes, the V-C had the advantage,
although special US search-and-destroy missions killed some V-C.
In open battles the US killed the V-C and NVA, but more just moved in.

*All this changed in 1968. The
US expected some kind of attack, because they knew there was a major buildup
of NVA and V-C around the Marine base at Khe San. However, the Vietnamese
New Year was coming up, and there was supposed to be a cease-fire in honour
of this occasion, called Tet, and beginning on the night of 30/31 January
in 1968. A few days before Tet, the NVA attacked Khe San, drawing
the world’s attention to the besieged Marine base. On 29 January,
a few V-C attacked towns in RVN, and on the night of 30/31 January, almost
every major town in RVN was attacked by V-C forces. Although the
US was distracted by Khe San, in most places the V-C were beaten immediately.
Only in Hue and Saigon itself did they have any success, where fighting
continued for several weeks.

*During Tet, the V-C killed anyone
they considered an enemy, especially the educated classes. Doctors,
teachers, minor governent officials, military personnel, and many others
were rounded up and executed. In Hue alone between 3,000 and 5,000
were killed and buried in mass graves.

*Tet destroyed the V-C. Over
100,000 were killed, wounded, or captured, compared to 1,100 dead US and
2,800 dead ARVN soldiers. Charlie would never do much again.
However, when images of Tet and the news of the apparent ease with which
US forces were surprised got home, civilians were horrified. On the
news it looked like the US was losing. Even when the US won, it looked
bad, especially the famous image of an ARVN officer summarily executing
a V-C POW on the street. Americans began to oppose the war in increasing
numbers.

*The Tet Offensive was a turning point
in the war psychologically. Although a tactical victory for the US
and ARVN, it convinced Americans watching at home that the V-C could attack
anywhere at any time they wanted in massive numbers, and do well even against
the US Army (even though after Tet that was largely untrue). The
bloody images of Tet filled television screens in the US, and more and
more people began to ask just what the Unites States were doing in Viet-Nam.